But prosecutors argued Liang was only concerned about losing his job and suggested that his initial attempt to find the shell casing from his gun was an attempt at a cover-up.
Advertisement
“When officer Liang found Mr. Gurley on the landing, from that moment, Peter Liang never stopped trying to get help over the radio”, defense attorney Robert Brown told the jury in his closing argument. They have asked the judge for an array of materials, including a copy of the New York Police Department’s patrol guide. Court is expected to resume Wednesday morning. If found guilty, he would be the first NYPD officer to be successfully prosecuted by a Brooklyn District Attorney in decades.
On the final day of the trial of NYPD officer Peter Liang, the prosecution argued that the rookie officer intentionally fired his weapon in the dark stairwell of East New York’s Pink Houses, killing 28-year-old Akai Gurley, and then attempted to cover up what happened.
At the time, Gurley’s death added fuel to protests in NY and elsewhere in the United States over the use of police force against minorities, although Liang, a Chinese-American, is not accused of deliberately shooting Gurley. Alexis read back Liang’s account from the witness stand: “I heard something and it startled me and the gun went off”. “It’s a awful tragedy”.
Liang is charged with manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, reckless endangerment, second-degree assault and official misconduct.
If convicted on the serious charges Liang faces up to 15 years in prison.
District Attorney Kenneth Thompson sat in the front row next to Gurley’s domestic partner, Kimberly Ballenger, as Assistant District Attorney Joe Alexis held up Liang’s gun while delivering his closing argument to the jury Tuesday. “Peter Liang walked away and left Akai to die in his own blood”, said Gurley’s mother, Sylvia Palmer.
“The People say he recklessly pulled out his gun”.
He acknowledged that Liang had his gun out in the stairwell, but said that was unofficial standard operating procedure for officers doing vertical patrols, like Liang and his partner, Shaun Landau.
The bullet ricocheted off a wall before striking Gurley a floor below.
He followed the sound down three flights and saw a man lying wounded and a distraught woman bending over him, Liang said Monday at his manslaughter trial in the 2014 death of Akai Gurley, who was unarmed.
Brown also said Liang immediately called for help upon realizing someone had been hit and did not have adequate training to offer medical aid.
“Oh my god, someone’s been hit”, he recalled saying upon seeing Gurley.
A sympathetic juror nudged a box of tissues toward the rookie cop who accidentally shot an unarmed man in a housing-project stairwell as he testified on Monday, prompting a court officer to pass the tissues to the silently crying cop.
New York City Police Officer Peter Liang, center, arrives for closing arguments at his Brooklyn Supreme Court trial in the shooting death of Akai Gurley, Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2016.
Advertisement
Liang, 28, says he didn’t know anyone was in the pitch-black stairway when he unintentionally fired.
